William Onyeabor

The Enugu industrialist and High Chief who wrote, produced and pressed eight years of synth-funk on his own label, then gave up music for God and would not discuss it again.

Origin
Enugu, Nigeria
Years active
1977-1985
Genres
synth-funk, electro-funk, disco-funk
Labels
Wilfilms, Luaka Bop
Also known as
The Chief

Enugu and Wilfilms

William Onyeabor was born in Enugu, in south-eastern Nigeria, and grew up in a poor family. Looking back on BBC radio in 2014, he described humble beginnings in which he was fighting to survive.

He built his own company, Wilfilms, in Enugu, and it did everything: it recorded his music in its own studio, then pressed the records and printed the sleeves. He went to Stockholm to learn record manufacturing and bought five Toolex Alpha pressing machines from Sweden through a friend, Gunnar Axel. More pressing equipment came from RCA in New York and Minneapolis, his Elka synthesizers came from Italy, and the vinyl compound from a supplier in Milan.

Eight years of records

His first LP, Crashes in Love (1977), was presented as the soundtrack to a film of the same name, though he would never confirm that the film existed. Atomic Bomb followed in 1978, Tomorrow in 1979 and Body & Soul in 1980, then Great Lover (1981), Hypertension and a second version of Crashes in Love (1982), Good Name (1983) and Anything You Sow (1985). All came out on Wilfilms.

The sleeves credit Onyeabor as composer, writer, arranger and producer. The playing came from the Wilfilms Resident Band, thanked but not named on the Atomic Bomb sleeve, and female backing singers answer him on many songs. NPR later called the music something like Nigeria's answer to Parliament-Funkadelic. The songs often carry a moral: on Good Name he sings that no money can buy a good name, over a squelching synthesizer bass.

The Chief

In the mid-1980s he became a born-again Christian, stopped making music and refused to talk about it afterwards. He turned to business, with a flour and semolina mill, and was named West African Industrialist of the Year in 1987. He was crowned a High Chief in Enugu, where he was known as the Chief, and served as an honorary Justice of the Peace, president of the Enugu Musicians' Union and chairman of the Enugu Rangers football club. He lived at Ezechukwu Palace in Awkunanaw, built in the late 1970s, which he said had been paid for by a gift from God.

Abroad, his records became a secret currency among DJs and crate diggers. Many first heard him through Better Change Your Mind on Strut's 2001 compilation Nigeria 70, and Luaka Bop put him on World Psychedelic Classics 3 in 2005.

Who Is William Onyeabor?

Luaka Bop's Yale Evelev spent about four years trying to license the music, and the writer Uchenna Ikonne spent more than nine months in Enugu without coming back with a signature. Onyeabor finally signed in summer 2011. Evelev meant to call the compilation This Is William Onyeabor, until he realised how little anyone knew about the man. Who Is William Onyeabor? came out on 29 October 2013, compiled by Ikonne, and Pitchfork named it Best New Reissue. Evelev remembered Onyeabor's terms as permission to sell the music, but never him.

Moog built William Onyeabor editions of two synthesizers, and remixes and covers followed, among them Hot Chip's version of Atomic Bomb. A short documentary named after Fantastic Man premiered in February 2014, with Damon Albarn, Femi Kuti and Dan Snaith; Onyeabor would not appear on camera. In November 2014 Luaka Bop reissued every album in box sets.

Atomic Bomb!

Onyeabor never played live. His songs were first performed on stage on 1 April 2014 at the Barbican in London by Atomic Bomb!, a tribute band led by Ahmed Gallab of Sinkane and Money Mark, with singers including Alexis Taylor, Damon Albarn and the Lijadu Sisters. Body and Soul opened the night. The show went on to Brooklyn, where David Byrne joined it, then San Francisco, Los Angeles and festivals, and to Byrne's Meltdown in London in 2015. In December 2014 Onyeabor gave his only radio interview, to BBC 6 Music, saying that he only made music that would help the world.

He died at home in Enugu on 16 January 2017, aged 70, after a brief illness, survived by his wife, children and four grandchildren. His son Charles Onyeabor is also a musician. That spring the Atomic Bomb Band released an album of his songs, and Fantastic Man played over an iPhone advert.

Records

Songs

Hot Chip, Sinkane, Four Tet, Caribou, David Byrne

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

  • Discogs The original Wilfilms pressings with sleeve credits, and every reissue.

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Film and video

Sources

  1. William Onyeabor, Wikipedia
  2. Rest in Peace, William Onyeabor, Luaka Bop (2017-01-18)
  3. William Onyeabor, Luaka Bop
  4. The story about the Swedish machines in William Onyeabor's backyard, Luaka Bop (2014-02-27)
  5. Nine Months In Nigeria, One Brilliant, Difficult Funk Musician, NPR (2013-12-15)
  6. William Onyeabor, Mysterious Funk Musician, Dies At 70, NPR (2017-01-18)
  7. Who Is William Onyeabor?, Wikipedia